Beer Tek

Nan's Nook : Archives : Liquid Culture : Walrus Maltose Tek : Beer Tek
  Subtopic Posts Updated Creator
Shroom Glossary  -    
CYRUS BARNABY MYCELLIUM TEK  -    
Liquid Culture  -    

By Admin (Admin) on Thursday, August 23, 2001 - 12:13 pm:

By Yachaj (Yachaj) on Saturday, April 21, 2001 - 03:15 pm: Edit


BEER TEK

The past few days I have been thinking about the different formula's which are used to germinate spores in (for liquid mycelium inoculations) or to dunk cakes in. Quote likes milk and/or honey, Barnaby likes ricewater. I like to add another one: beer

My reason for using beer is that it contains a lot of malt sugar (up to 15 percent or 150g/l). For some reason (and I have no idea what that reason is), maltose or maltsugar is the very best energy source for mushroom mycelia. In agar cultures, maltose beats glucose (honey-sugar) and lactose (milk sugar), which is evident when you check the growth speed and thickness of the mycelium growing on agar media which are composed with different sugars.

The problem with maltose is that it is expensive, difficult to get and even more difficult to store. It attracts water like crazy, and becomes mud in hours.

But beer is easy to get! Especially the non-alcoholic maltbeer which is so useful for mushroom growing (you can use normal beer too, but remove the alcohol by boiling).

So for spore germination I would recommend sterilized nonalcoholic maltbeer. Normal beer can also be used, but this first needs to be boiled in an open pan for some time (to remove the alcohol, which itself boils away at 70 centigrade).

Before I forget: if you experiment with different malt brands please use the lightest you can get. Dark malt contains a lot of caramelized sugars, which mycelia do not like.

Yachaj